Premature infants come into the world earlier than full-term infants. Prematurity occurs when a pregnancy lasts fewer than 37 weeks; full-term infants are born 38 to 42 weeks after the mother's last menstrual period. Premature infants borne as early as after 22 to 23 weeks may survive, this is however rare. After 25 to 26 week the infants have quite high chance of surviving, about 44% of the infants born between 25 and 26 week survive.
Full-term infants normally weigh around 2.5-5 kg at the time of birth. Due to many recent advances, more than 90% of premature babies who weigh 800 grams or more survive. Those who weigh more than 500 grams have a 40% to 50% chance of survival, although the risk for complications is greater.
Premature infants have many special needs that make their care different from that of full-term infants, which is why they often begin their lives after delivery in a neonatal intensive care unit. The neonatal intensive care unit is designed to provide an atmosphere that limits stress to the infant and meets basic needs of warmth, nutrition, and protection to assure proper growth and development.
In most neonatal intensive care unit the nurses try to concentrate their care into discrete sessions and otherwise allow the infants to sleep undisturbed. Some of the tasks which are done regularly are; measuring the infant's temperature, mouth care, bathing and changing of diapers or covers. In order not to have something chafing against the sensitive premature infant's skin an absorbent cover may be placed in the incubator instead of a diaper being put on the infant. In order to fit into the incubator the large cover intended for adult care is cut into a suitable size. At regular intervals these small covers are changed, up to one time per hour in order to control if the baby has urinated. Before and after use the nurses weigh the diapers and/or covers in order to keep track of the infants discharge of urine and faeces. This is important information in order to assess if the basal functions are functioning correctly, such as for example the kidney and the urinary tracts, and as a further step, in order for the caregivers to compare the input of nutrition and the discharge of urine and faeces for an evaluation of the nutrition uptake of the infant. Since it may be difficult to detect if the baby has urinated just by looking into the incubator when the baby is lying on top of the cover, the covers are often changed more frequently than necessary. This results in more handling of the small premature infants than necessary, which are known to feel best with as few factors of disturbance as possible. For the personnel working at these departments the cutting of the covers and the weighing of said covers before and after use are extra working moments. Cutting the large cover into smaller pieces further leads to open side edges of the covers often containing cellulose fibers, which may cause the small cellulose fibers to spread and dust in the incubator.
EP1180370 describes a covering sheet for bedding articles, such as mattress and pillow covering sheet, having a surface area from 15 m2 to 0.3 m2. However this is a very broad range with no indications on how to adjust the covering sheet in width and length in order to be of a size that may fit into an incubator.
JP2002224093 discloses an electronic excretion sensor for diaper or urine absorption pad that calculates the amount of excretion absorbed by diaper by sensor output.
WO2004021944 discloses a sensing device in the form of a magnetoelastic film for detecting wetness in absorbent articles such as bed protector. US20050234414 and US20060069362 disclose diapers with wetness indication by visible colour change. US 20050195085 describes an electronic wetness sensors for diapers.
In view of the above stated problems in the field of care of premature infants and in view of the prior art there is still a need for a cover specially adapted for use in an incubator, which cover is easy to use and further reduces the working moments of the caregivers and prevent unnecessary handling of the sensitive premature infants.